Not every music streaming service pays artists equally, and a new report highlights the breadth of disparities from one streamer to the next—including Apple Music paying more than double Spotify’s average rates.
Update 2:50 p.m. ET: Added statement from Spotify spokesperson to the end.
Spotify’s payouts trail far behind Apple Music, and haven’t increased with price hikes
Duetti has published a new economics report analyzing the state of artist payouts from various music streaming services (via Apple World Today).
The report focuses on 2024 payouts, and shows how big players like Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, and more compare with each other and the direction they’re trending.
One major metric tracked is how much a streamer pays out for 1,000 streams. Here’s what the report shows for 2024 payouts per 1,000 streams:
- Amazon: $8.80
- Apple Music: $6.20
- YouTube: $4.80
- Spotify: $3.00
As the data shows, Apple Music paid artists more than double Spotify’s rates last year, driven down partly by Spotify’s free tier.
Despite the number of ads Spotify’s free plan includes, revenue from those streams doesn’t contribute much to artists’ bank accounts.
Spotify can’t fully blame its ad-supported plan for the low payouts though, since YouTube, another ad-heavy service, pays over 50% more on average.
Apple Music, with its paid-only offerings, is able to pay out more and very clearly does so.
The report also notes that Spotify has continued raising prices over recent years despite artist payouts declining with every increase—a worrying trend. While the investment into podcasts and audiobooks seems to be finding some success for the company, it perhaps has come at the expense of music artists.
Update: The following statement was sent by a Spotify spokesperson regarding the claims of the Duetti report:
“These claims are ridiculous and unfounded. No streaming service pays per stream because that approach would incentivize streaming services to minimize streams. It would mean low engagement, fewer artist connections, and lower overall payouts. Instead, we take the opposite approach. We want users to engage more so that they pay more – both by sticking around and choosing premium. We are proud to be the leader in total payouts, but that doesn’t happen by accident; it’s by design.
Further, not only do we dispute the numbers and unattributed ‘guesses’ across the board, but we reject the premise of the report because it is out of step with the reality of how the industry works.”
What are your takeaways from this report? Let us know in the comments.
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